A/N: Hahaha, only... slightly less late than the last one! Aren't y'all proud? Yeah, didn't think so. Anyways, as usual, everyone who reviewed is absolutely amazing because I really think I'm going to break 100 of 'em with this story and that makes me very, very happy. :D So, that was kind of a (not) subtle hint for more reviews. :) I like hearing what you think. I really do. And there is a fight scene coming in the next chapter, too. I promise. ^-^
It was no hard matter to get Seth Russell back in for questioning, but it was another entirely to try and hold him. Sherlock, John, and Beck waited on the other side of the two-way mirror while Lestrade questioned Russell for the second time that day.
"Is that why you killed Thomas?" he asked. "Because he knew you were abusing your children?" Russell stared at him wordlessly. He had been silent ever since they had picked him up again, refusing to answer Lestrade with even a word. The Detective Inspector tried again.
"You're in a really bad spot right now, you know. You're the only person with any kind of reason to have killed Thomas; we know he was going to turn you into the police. He even had your information on his computer. And we have a witness." In spite of himself, Russell started at that, looking worried for just a brief second before settling down again. "A friend of your son's; he saw you hit your child. So we can definitely pin you for that, and from there it's not too much further to proving that you're the one who murdered Thomas Howard. So, we could go through all of that, or you could confess and make it easier on everyone."
Russell continued to stare at him, unresponsive. Lestrade matched his gaze for a minute, before saying, "Fine, we'll go with the hard way then." He left the interrogation room and circled around to the other side of the mirror.
"He's not going to say anything," Sherlock told him.
"Well, we can hold him for forty-eight hours before we have to charge him with something or let him go," Lestrade answered. "We need to get enough evidence to charge him with one or the other in that time."
"I'd go for the murder one," Beck said. "It's mighty unlikely his wife'll let us talk to her kids. Not after we arrested her husband for the second time in two days."
"I don't suppose it makes a difference to her that her husband's an abusive murderer," John commented. Beck shrugged.
"Well, we know that, but we're looking at it from the outside. She, on the other hand, is married to him and has two kids with him. It's ain't much of a surprise that she'd have a little trouble believing that he killed somebody."
"What was Thomas Howard's cause of death?" Sherlock asked.
"Um, a blow to the back of the head caused by a blunt object of some sort. They still don't know where he was killed, though. There was no trace of anything in his wounds apart from the sand that washed in during the flood."
"It's doubtful that he was killed near Russell's house; the neighbors would have heard something and raised an alarm," Sherlock postulated. Beck frowned in concentration and then offered another opinion.
"Well, they'd only hear anything if he was killed outside the house, wouldn't they though? If he was killed inside the house during the middle of the night, no one would be awake and even if they were it's unlikely the neighbors would hear anything."
"Well yeah, but wouldn't the family?" John asked, bringing up the flaw in the theory. "There's no way he'd be able to hide that from his wife, at the very least." Lestrade sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. They only had two days at the most to figure out where Russell had killed Howard and what he had done it with.
"Beck, when you got a look around their house, did you see anything that could have been used as a murder weapon?" Sherlock asked. "It's unlikely that he planned on murdering Howard, so he probably used something that he had on hand when Howard confronted him." Beck bit her lip and thought back to her brief time in Russell's hallway.
"Nothing offhand, no; but I thought Russell knew Howard was onto him. What about that fight they had in the bar?" Sherlock shook his head.
"No, that was over Russell insulting the way Thomas was raising his girlfriend's children. Nathan Harris told us about that, remember? That was probably why Howard got so angry with him."
"Yeah, because he knew what he was being compared too," John snorted. "No wonder he lost it at him."
"But then the question remains, how did Howard find out Russell was abusing his children in the first place?" Lestrade remarked. "He had no connection to him apart from work, and then when he did, why on earth would he tell Russell that he knew? It would only be putting him in danger. It makes no sense."
"Well I might be able to help with that," Beck told him. "He was angry at him for what Russell was doing and he wasn't thinking his best. My dad did exactly the same thing." She didn't elaborate further, but she took the file from Lestrade and scanned it over. "Was there any kind of fiber in the wound? Like carpet or pet hair?" Lestrade frowned.
"Not that I'm aware of."
"He might have just counted on the river to wash anything in the wound away," Sherlock said. "If that was the case, there might be something still trapped in there, near the back. Is the body still in the morgue?" It was, but Molly wouldn't be able to get to it until tomorrow at the earliest. She had other cases to do and now that Howard's autopsy had been done she couldn't go back to him until she'd finished her other work.
"Can we afford to wait a day?" John asked. "After all, none of those forensic tests are particularly quick."
"True, but we might be able to get a rush on those if I can get the right paperwork in," Lestrade responded. "Still, you have a point. We're going to be cutting it fine no matter what."
"As long as we find something the time constraint doesn't make a difference," Sherlock remarked, staring through the two-way mirror at Seth Russell. Finally, Beck posed the question that had been lurking at the back of everyone's mind.
"What're we gonna do if we don't find anything before we've got to let him go?" They all glanced at each other, no one sure what the answer was. Finally, Lestrade shrugged.
"We'll keep looking; there's got to be some evidence somewhere that can help us prove that he's the one who murdered Howard. All we have to do is find it." Lestrade had to go back to his office to prepare the paperwork for the rush request, leaving Sherlock, John, and Beck to go back to Baker Street for the evening.
The three wandered around the sitting room; or rather, Beck wandered while John typed furiously on his laptop and Sherlock stretched himself out on the couch like an unfurling coil to think. Finally, Beck blew a sigh from between her pursed lips and swung back toward the couch.
"Here, scooch," she said. "Let me sit down too." Sherlock didn't answer, but he sat up, instead leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees. The rain continued to pound down against the windows of 221B and a fire burned in the fireplace. Beck soon found herself falling asleep to the sound of the rain until finally she was out cold, slipping sideways to lean against Sherlock, who only glanced at her occasionally in his thought, careful not to move.
John glanced over at the pair, smiling to himself; it wasn't often that Sherlock allowed himself to be touched at all, let alone used as a human pillow. He watched with even greater amusement as Sherlock himself began to fall asleep until he and Beck were both down for the count on the couch. Looking at the pair as he continued to type quietly, he felt a surge of affection for the both of them that was coupled with relief that they were finally getting a break, even if it was just a night's worth.
Soon enough, but after the other two, his own eyelids began getting heavy and he closed his laptop quietly, setting it aside and settling himself down in his chair; he decided against going to his room because they could very likely get a call early in the morning and he didn't want to miss it. Not long after he settled down, he too was asleep to the sound of the rain, and 221B Baker Street experienced its first peaceful night in over a week.
The next day was far from peaceful, however; chaotic was more the appropriate description. They were up at nine when Molly called to say that she could start examining the head wound for any residual evidence. They didn't waste any time going into the Yard, where Lestrade met them and told them that Russell was still refusing to say anything.
"We've got until the end of the day to either get something out of him or get some forensics to back up our accusation so we can keep him," he informed them grimly. Their chances were not good- forensic tests moved a hell of a lot slower than people thought they did.
"Did you manage to get them rushed?" John asked. Lestrade nodded.
"Luckily, I was able to do that, but that's no guarantee that anything we find will make it back before we have to release Howard."
"And that's if we find anything," Beck pointed out. "Howard spent a good few hours under fast-moving water; any trace evidence may have been washed away."
"Speaking of fast-moving water…" Lestrade muttered, glancing out the window. True to English form, the rain was coming down just as hard as it had been yesterday, rendering thirty seconds outside the equivalent of two hours of drying time.
Sherlock's phone rang sharply, starting them all out of their thoughts. He flipped it open.
"Molly; what did you find?" He listened for a few seconds, jaw clenching, before he hung up the phone. "There was nothing evident in the wound; it was all washed out by the river."
"So we got all of nothing, then?" Beck commented. Truth be told, she wasn't entirely surprised- none of them were. After laying so long in the Thames and then having died almost two weeks ago, it was a faint hope to think that anything might have been preserved.
"The murder weapon was almost certainly something he had in his house," Sherlock intoned. "We need to search it and test the possibilities for blood residue."
"Yeah, but to do that we need a warrant, and to get a warrant we need probable cause, which we don't have," Lestrade told him.
"What about what Jeffrey Neely said?" Beck asked. "Could we keep him or get a warrant for that?" Lestrade shrugged, looking dubious.
"Maybe, but that depends on whether or not anyone else believes that Jeffrey was telling the truth." The four looked at one another in silence. There was no getting around it. They didn't have sufficient evidence to keep him for the child abuse or Thomas Howard's murder until they could get concrete proof, and they couldn't get concrete proof without him being out of the way.
"We're going to have to let him go," John stated, saying what they all thought. None of them bothered to disagree. They would just have to keep working on the case and find the evidence and hope that no matter what they weren't too late. They kept working right up until Russell was let out of holding, before meeting back in Lestrade's office.
"He's gone," Lestrade said. "I tried to get a warrant, but they keep saying that they need more evidence. Just like we thought they would."
"What about his kids?" Beck asked. "Can't we at least get them out of his house? They're in danger; by now he'll know that his secret's out and he won't like that. We have to get them somewhere else."
"I'll see what I can do, but I can't make any promises short of going... extra-legal, so to speak." Beck sighed and rubbed her forehead. It was like it had been the last time, right before she and her family had left England. She had gone to the police and they had said there was nothing they could do, and then everything had blown up on them and the police didn't get there until it was very nearly too late. Still, though, at least Lestrade was actually trying; that was definitely an improvement.
"Where's Sherlock?" John asked suddenly, noticing the detective's absence. All three of them looked around for Sherlock, but wherever he'd gone, he'd well and truly snuck out on them. Beck frowned; where on earth could that man have gone? He knew they had a case to solve to stop- oh... Oh crap. She knew where he'd gone. She knew exactly where he'd gone. She rushed out of the room, in too much of a hurry to explain, leaving a thoroughly confused John and Lestrade behind her, and rushed out of the building.